Wash the Windows, Sunshine
by Nightfall Rising
Summary: If Val can summon the end of the world and get the mercy of rebirth, why not someone else?  Someday the mortal realms too might need a spark of cheerful chaos to arrange all their affairs for them.   AU.  Prologue alone wildly experimental in style
1. Prologue: White wolf shadows

Usual Disclaimers: 1) Slayers and its characters belong to Kanzaka-san and his posse. 2) If it's not in the anime, it's not in the canon I work from. Won't be repeating this for every chapter; both are always true.

Notes: This story started as an experiment in style, just to try something new. That would be this prologue; the rest isn't like this. At all. It was fun to write, but not sustainable.

Wash the Windows, Sunshine  
by Nightfall

_Grandma he say, _Beware wolves tonight, my love. Full moon tonight, blue moon coming, red moon arising.

_And Riding Hood all innocence, face screwed tight suspicion, _Okay, you fruitcake, _she say,_ what are you up to now?

_And from beneath the bonnet's lacy shadows, wolf he laugh, he sob, _O precious darling, not me this time._ But he gobble she up anyhow, hold her deep in he belly._

_Woodcutter's flaming blade it cut him bright, cut him open top to bottom. Wolf, he only laugh til he eyes leak bloody tears, till he step out his fur. Step out from himself, black creature, he armor so heavy he feet no lift, black mailed arm wrap tight around she lily throat, he say, _If you do not curse this blade and kill me with it before I bless it, you will surely die. The world will be your escort into hell, for my name is blackened before God and the Master of Games, and my blessings go all awry.

_Then, he say, simple woodsman, simple simon, _Don't.

But don't you see?_ ask he old spook, smiling, crimson tears run free from slack sockets he empty eyes, lift he wrists in jointed gauntlets, show woodsman he chains, and she fanged shadow on the wall loom nearer, inch close. _Don't you see the strings?

_But Maid already curse she blade, curse to shatter she world, and when the lights fade away, Mother look out Her eyes. Simple jack gape and She, She mourn, **O Beast**._

_Beast say to golden fairy, _Sweet lady, my choices are gone, or you would never have felt my claws.

_**Then,** say Beauty to monster, _**_I Will Free You, And You Will Have All The Choices In The World, For In A Thousand Years And Twelve I Have Never Had Such A Jester_.**_ She make herself he ox, he coat gold red like she blood sand, and from he belly pull white dog he howl, he eyes blue like northest deepest ice, and from it she pull spitting grey cat, he acid eyes eat she moon, and from it soot-blue goose, she bite Her with she golden beak. From she goose's feather breast She draw he hard lava ball, he smooth and black and dressed in she cream silk. He ball shatter and comes he rose, all crimson dry with he black blood, and with rose She pierce he chest, She press it close till thorns swallowed and he scream, he scream, he scream._

_Then black armor crack, break and thunder, and when he dark dust fallen, unenchanted he rogue he sit quiet and naked in she dust, he fool, he face still stone with they salt tears stream down. _Sweet lady,_ he say, _O best beloved, how can I live with grave shadows all around me, or with this blood I have shed when I did not know myself?

_It drip from he hands and mouth, from he tips of he vanished claws and fangs, and pool on the floor until he near to drowning._

_But she God Mother she frown down, she answer,** I Gave You All Choices, Priest. You Have Only To Make One, And That Is How You Will Live.**_

_But Fool he bow his head and say, _A jester must be heartless or heart-whole, and the wolf ate my innocence in the moonlight.

_**I Will Return It If You Wish,** she say, **For Your Heart Was Ever Mine, And A Child Should Mend Her Own Toys.**_

_And then she gold, and then she gold._

_When it done, and woodsman he scratching his head at they two sleeping in she dust, that gleaming dragon he step out from they shadows, he say, It is the end of the nightmare, and we return to the waking world. See you to your maiden, and I to the child, and in the end it may yet be well. And he fly away with he small bundle in he golden talons to they howls, they thousand thwarted wolves._

_And when she wake again her own colors hurt he eyes so pink so black, and she say to woodsman,_ What the hell happened NOW, and where did that scheming purple nutjob go,_ all he can answer be, _Gee, Lina, I forget.

_And Red Cloak she growl like she wolf, and sigh, _Typical, yogurt-brains.


	2. The lull and drag of peace

What Gourry remembered, he remembered in his body. Zel could make himself hoarse screaming Damn-You-Rezo and he'd only blink in confusion, but sometimes a flash of crimson was enough to make him duck. He sometimes had to ask Sylphiel her name three times when they met up, but at the first sight of neo-Sairaag's woods and blue mountains he remembered wide green eyes and reckless frailty and the best cooking he'd ever tasted, and knew that here was home if he wanted it.

He didn't remember that last trip very well, not the way other people would have if they'd been there. Lina was the one who should have remembered, but funny things always happened to her memory when she glowed gold.

The only things he was sure of were the shock of a smile you could really believe in, a starry burst of light he could have sworn he'd seen once before with something dark dropping out of it, and a couple of profoundly relieved faces among a lot of apoplectic, whiskery ones.

That was why when Zel jumped at shadows he just smiled. When Filia scowled and tried to figure out what Trash on Wheels was up to he could only say, "Don't worry," and when the girls wondered where Xellos was, all he could say was, "Gone."

They had been alone on that trip because Amelia had already had to leave for home on the death of her grandfather and Zel had said he might as well escort her back as far as the library. That had been the last trip before the really, really scary lady who looked a little like Amelia had caught up with them and claimed Lina as a prior acquaintance.

She'd made herself thoroughly unpleasant, but Lina hadn't seemed to mind. Much. And he walked in on them fighting really strangely by accident once and got left out of one too many fights, and the end of it was that he accepted Amelia's invitation to head back to Sailoon and be her weaponsmaster.

Zel had come back from his perpetual quest a few years later, looking very depressed. He'd been even more immune than usual to Amelia's increasingly skillful attempts at snaring him—he didn't even seem to notice anymore—and he wouldn't accept any title or formal salary. Before very long, though, Amelia's other bodyguards were much better trained and everyone in the palace was doing exactly what he told them to, and he didn't argue when the gold he richly deserved showed up in his rooms every week. More, he didn't just disappear anymore when he got restless; he went to Amelia or King Phil and asked for an errand. Lina tried, on a visit, to jolly him out of it, with very limited success: she got few smiles out of him, but they made her want to scream. Gourry didn't want to scream, but he knew how she felt.

The years went by this way, but their band had consisted of a dragon, a chimera, a part-elf, and three strong sorceresses, and magic protected all their ages. Except for Filia's occasional letters about how her boys were growing (she said she'd gotten the second one from that other Golden Dragon, Milgazia. Gourry felt there was something wrong with that, but since he couldn't pin it down, he soon forgot it), there wasn't much reason to notice.

No reason at all until, nineteen years after the Slayers settled down, Amelia was crowned Queen.


	3. We must think of a quest!

There was no living with Amelia lately. One had to feel sorry for her, of course, and could only admire the way that she was doing her best to carry on bravely. Any prince was expected to, but she and her father had had an unusually close relationship, for nobility, and she'd taken his final, fatal stroke as hard as might be expected. There was, however, only so much standing to one side and a little behind and keeping a poker face while she chewed out one more unfortunate page and burst into tears in the middle of it that even the oldest friend or most loyal retainer could take.

This was not, of course, how he put it to her.

"What you need is a new staff."

If the page had had any sense, he would have taken advantage of the distraction to run away. You didn't run away from the Queen, though. He was lucky Zel was there to shoo him out.

Amelia was blinking at him, or maybe just blinking. She was also on the verge of ruining her makeup, and then she'd be in with her hairdresser for another hour instead of Getting Things Done. He handed her a handkerchief.

"A new staff?"

He shrugged once. "One you can train yourself to do things the way you want them done."

"But—"

"You won't have to worry about these people. If the Queen gives them good references, being let go this soon after a change of command won't look bad on their resumes. You just took over; it's expected that things will get switched around."

She sniffed a couple of times, but they were tapering off, and her teary blue eyes above the handkerchief took on a little more life at the thought of young lives to mold. He repressed a shudder of pity; Amelia was, like her father, an excellent statesman and a terrifying mentor, and he was eternally grateful to have looked like an adult to her when they'd met. Gourry hadn't been quite so lucky, once she'd gotten over his height. "Oh, Zel," she cried, "what a wonderful idea! The cook's never understood how much a magic-user needs to eat, and I wanted to redecorate a few things anyway, and-"

"Okay," he said, nodding sharply to cut her off in the 'I understand what you want now so you can stop talking' way that she'd finally learned wasn't meant as an insult. "I'll go get you a staff."

Half an hour later, he was on the road.

The first thing he did was stop just inside the city gates to buy a newspaper and fill his whiskey flask with espresso from a street stand. Amelia had given it to him as a birthday present, once, during a year when the dashing look was popular, and he'd refrained from pointing out aloud that the last thing he needed was a depressant.

"Off again, Mr. Greyweir, sir?" the man behind the counter asked.

"Mm," he answered, reading. Did he know the man? Didn't matter. The city's lone chimeric face was unmistakable.

"Where to?"

"It doesn't matter… Ah. Nohao first, I think."

"Nohao? Isn't that on the other continent, sir?"

"The near tip, yes." He folded the paper up again and handed it back. "Here, you can sell this again."

The salesman paused, accepted the paper, and handed him a handful of traveling bars. "Fair's fair, Mr. Greyweir. So what's in Nohao?"

"An explosion."

* * *

_Note: since the other continent does not seem to have much in the way of place names and the map with more than the world under the barrier is unreadable, I'm borrowing Stefan Gagne's geography, in tribute._


	4. Lina misses her chance

He hadn't really expected to find Lina in Nohao; it took too long to get there even at his best traveling speed, and she was undoubtedly somewhere else by now. But he found a few young people along the way who were thirsting to get away from home even if it did mean cleaning or grooming animals or spending all day up to their shins in laundry soap. These he sent back to Sailoon for evaluation.

Anyway, it didn't take him so long to get there that he couldn't still follow her tracks. In fact, although the dust of her passage had long settled, the new ruts in the road where she and her companion had built up speed before tearing away had yet to be filled in. They had headed back east. Zel sighed, bought lunch at the most promising-looking restaurant, and promptly headed back without inquiring after the name of the chef.

He traced them to the foothills of the Kataart Mountains, near where Filia had set up shop, and noticed that their tracks went up the mountain, but not down. Good. He left a note for them at the bottom of the trail, telling Lina to meet him at Filia's house without failure on pain of wanting to die of regret when she found out about the missed opportunity, and headed into the village.

Filia and her sons (he hadn't met them in person, but he and Filia had been sending occasional letters back and forth for years) weren't home, but her slaveringly loyal henchtroll and foxminion still recognized him (his face not being forgettable), and let him in. He told them that hopefully Lina was on her way, and after a brief wince they put his things in the boys' room instead of the guest room. Knowing from painful experience that he didn't want to eat anything they prepared, he asked them to recommend somewhere.

The place they recommended was actually one he had seen coming in, although he hadn't thought much of it. It was varnished instead of painted, and so palely that its walls looked like raw wood. The sign had a fizzing test tube painted on it, held over a candle by a rubber-gloved hand in a white sleeve. He frowned at it quizzically, shrugged, and went in. At least there were plenty of people inside.

The moment he stepped inside, it was as though someone had unstrapped a large boulder from his shoulders. He'd learned, over the years, to take people's reactions to his appearance more of less in stride, but in here no one so much as blinked, probably because at every third table or so sat at a traveler or two who looked, in their own ways, stranger than him. The waitstaff was unhesitatingly polite in such an offhand and casual manner that he almost felt at ease, the smells all around made his lizard brain sit up and whimper, and the overall cleanliness of the place was the final blow. He'd never seen anyplace but a magic lab or his own bedroom look quite so scrubbed, and it managed to be, unlike his bedroom, more airy than sterile.

It was all very informal. The waiters were all wearing identical tan aprons, but they were wearing them over street clothes, and the unframed pictures on the wall looked like they'd probably been done by local schoolchildren. It appeared that the place had been deliberately built to have acoustics that ate noise for lunch.

There wasn't any menu that he could hold in his hands; it was scrawled on a blackboard with colored chalk and happy flourishes. As he was scanning it, someone in an apron came out of the kitchen and bellowed, "Now hear this! We are _out_ of strawberries. There _are no more._ Stop asking! The fruit tart will be replaced by a berry flan. Look, I'm changing it on the menu now!"

Zel chewed on a smile and, out of curiosity ordered the 'weird egg and veggie rice dish from Ralteague, we don't know what it is but Sol was working on it all last week and we like it now.'

"Oh, excellent choice, sir!" his waiter enthused. It was different when she said 'sir' than when anyone from Sailoon said it, and he didn't mind as much. She was just being polite, not obsequious. "Will you be paying in money, labor, or recipes?"

This too was unoffensive; it appeared to be a routine question, and so when he inquired it was without an edge.

"Well, sir," she said, rocking back on her heels like it was a prepared speech, "as you've noticed, we're right on the highway, and we get all kinds of people passing though. Some of them can't afford much, but they have to eat, too, and since we all share the work we like to nab anyone else to do the more routine stuff whenever we can. So we give customers the option of paying with labor for part or all of their meal. Also, if you know any recipes we don't and you're willing to share, we'll give you a very reasonable credit account, enough for a couple of meals." She beamed happily, and he peered suspiciously at her roots, looking for purple that wasn't there. "We're the Experiment! And so far it works pretty well!"

"I see. I'll just pay. Who's Sol?"

"Oh, Solace? He's the chef. It's his place; it was his idea."

"Hm," he mused. "I might want to meet him."

"He's not here today… I'll go get your food!"

Even her walk bounced, and in here she fit right in. He took careful notice. It was unusual for people of her class to be that happy about their work without having a sadistic edge. Maybe it was an effect of proximity with one of the last of the dragons (a reasonable hypothesis, if Filia had, like Amelia, mostly grown out of being a melodramatic spazz, since proximity with the polar opposite of dragons was invariably stressful), or maybe the chef was worth stealing.

The egg dish came, he took a bite, and the next thing he knew he was coming back from a happy place to the identical wolfish grins of Lina Inverse and her buddy Naga, sitting right across from him.

"Good, huh?" said Lina.

"Gleep," he replied intelligently.

"Got your note, but we figured the troll would send you here," Lina explained while her friend opened her mouth and howled like a demonic hyena, possibly by way of greetings.

"That's nice," he said, and fell over, clutching his sensitive ears.

When it was over, he crawled back out from under the table to find that his food was gone. He looked at Lina blankly, and signaled the waitress. "She ate my dinner. Get me another one and put the first one on her tab."

The waitress immediately clonked Lina over the head with her tray in a familiar manner. "You can't get away with that just because Sol isn't here, Miss Inverse," she scolded. "And don't think we won't tell him when he gets back!"

"Yeah, yeah," Lina sighed, as though it were all to be expected, and tossed her a silver.

"I'll be right back with _your_ dinner, sir," she placated Zel, and bounced off again.

"You know this Solace?" Zel asked, somewhat awed. If the man could keep Lina in check, he definitely wanted words with him.

"Gyih," Lina grimaced. "Filia's kid. The one who didn't used to be Valgaav. He's…"

"Yummy?" Naga suggested, leering.

"Weird," Lina finished. "Good shamanist. Great cook. I won't prejudice you. You gonna finish that?"

Zel looked at her cross-eyed. "It hasn't even gotten here yet."

"So?"

"So yes."

"Damn!" She snapped her fingers cheerfully. "So, what's this quest I can't miss?"

"Actually," he said, eyeing the waitress hungrily, "you may be too late already. Amelia needs a new cook."

"..._Damn!"_


	5. Gourry is a great help

Zel sent a message back the palace by pigeon the next day, telling them, "Retain with due honor the cook Brenner ul Copt until my arrival," but at Lina's insistence, he didn't hurry. He was glad of it, too, because there were a Zephelian chef, a cook in an Atlan restaurant, a Testan underchef, and a very impressive tailor in Mesquite that he ended up making interview offers to, as well as a number of young people with fewer skills and a common relatively wholesome ambition.

He had a sizable bunch of tagalongs by the time he got back, but he dumped them on one of the pages without remorse and went to find Amelia's uncle, who usually knew what was what.

But Christopher had never seen the man, and certainly hadn't assigned him a room. The underservants, smelling imminent layoff and knowing damn well who to blame for it, were inclined to be unhelpful. Frustrated, Zel went to find Gourry.

Somewhat to everyone's surprise, in spite or perhaps because of his simplicity, Gourry had turned out to be a superb judge of character. Zel, not being everyone and remembering who hadn't been surprised when the monster who'd traveled with them had admitted it, had eased him into more or less taking over the porter's position, once he'd been promoted to Senior Weaponsmaster and had more time on his hands. He had a problem remembering names, but that was what clerks were for. He was almost certain to sort of halfway remember, and the clerk could fill in the blanks.

Zel didn't even have to ask. Gourry came right at him with that sunny, spacious grin that had made his stomach do flipflops for a few long years, once upon a time, waving and calling, "I got your pigeon! All secure!"

"Good," Zel replied warily. "Er... secure?"

Gourry nodded vigorously. Zel had found him on the practice grounds, and his snapping hair made tracks in the floating dust motes. "He gave us some trouble at first, but then Amelia warded him. He was so insulted he just sat there sulking even after she took them off."

"You _warded_ him?" Zel yelped.

"Well, you said to detain him, and he kept getting out. Is he a mazoku? Because when I saw him, I thought he looked like one, only he didn't seem like a bad guy. But I really wish you'd explain it to Filia. We had to wire her jaw shut with Orihalcon to stop her from burning down the palace."

"Life hates me," he groaned under his breath. "Gourry, what did that note say? Let me see it."

"Sure," Gourry agreed cheerfully, and started them across the grounds towards the wing with the dungeon underneath. "But why did you want me to lock up Filia's kid, Zel?"

* * *

"I really didn't," he was explaining to a steaming Filia as he carefully maneuvered the wire-cutters he used on his hair between the metal and her neck, having first obtained what he hoped was a promise to hear him out before committing major damage. "Here." He handed over the note.

"Smudgetain with due smudge c-smudge-k S-smudge Copt smudgetil smudge arrival," she read, and looked up with a glare. "You didn't?"

"No," he said impassively. "I can't help it if a note comes in when Gourry's in the porter's office and he thinks I'd use a word like crook in an official communique. Given that it's Gourry, I don't think we can really blame him, either."

"You should have rainproofed it," she growled.

He sighed. "Possibly. However, your town has limited facilities, and-"

"My town?"

"Yes. Your minions suggested I eat at the Experiment. That was why I pigeoned right away. They told me you'd already come here, and I didn't want to let a chef like that get away before I could evaluate him. We're hiring."

"Oh!" she said thoughtfully, and he helped her with a wire that had gotten twisted down her back. "I'd say something unflattering about the way you give a compliment, Zel Greyweir, but since he actually came here for that job, I won't. I don't know if he'll still want it after this, though."

"I mean to find out," he said flatly, taking the last of the wires from her and letting her out of the cell. "His waitress used his name to scold Lina with, and she didn't blow the place up. But jobs aside, we're very sorry about this misunderstanding. How can we make it up to you?"

"First of all, you can let my sons out of your dungeon," she glowered. "Then-"

"Sons?" he blinked. "I thought we only had the one."

"Val decided to keep him company."

Zel frowned. "That's not allowed."

Smiling faintly, Filia suggested, "A little less of the rule-book, please, Zel-san, and a little more 'Oh Noble Valtierra, please accept this medal for stopping your baby brother from Dragon Slaving the castle,' okay?"

"Oh," Zel said gloomily. "Quite." Maybe he should have attended to that one in person, as well.

She patted his arm comfortingly. "Knowing Sol, he'll be over the murderous fit by now. At this point he's probably just pouting. Or possibly finding the nearest donkey to talk the hind legs off of."

He sighed. He remembers when you could go the length of the continent without finding someone who could pull off even an inferior Dragon Slave. "That explains why Amelia warded him. You were saying?"

"Yes-I'll want a bath and two rooms for at least the night, and either a dry cleaner or a new dress. Actually, both, please. And a hot meal, and possibly a donation. And tea. Lots of tea."

Zel couldn't help a smile. "I was thinking about buying that four foot vase you have by the door in your shop."

"The one with the marshwater pattern?" she asked, looking surprised.

"With the long grass coming up the sides, and the fish? Yes. Amelia wanted to redecorate. I thought we could put cattails in it. Or something," he finished lamely. He didn't really know what would go in a vase like that; he'd just liked the soberness of it. Some kind of bush, possibly. But it had had dust on it, so getting it off her hands could be considered a favor.

She looked pleased. "You like that one? Val painted it. Most people think it's too dark. I'll send it to you with the bill."

"Send them both to Christopher; he's the chancellor. And tell him what to put in it. You can explain about this in the cover letter, and I'll speak to him first."

"All right. But Zel-san, one more thing."

"Such as?" he asked cautiously. He might be willing to make a public apology, but the girls tended, when they wanted revenge, to demand things like private concerts in drag, and there was a limit.

"We'll want to eat the bird."


	6. Kitchens can give great solace

When all the things he didn't technically have to take care of himself but did anyway were done with, like a drill of random on-duty guards and his own unpacking, Zel shrugged off his surcoat and slumped down to the kitchens for a later supper, possibly of bread and cheese. He'd expected to find it closed down for the night, but the lights were on. There was a girl inside, on the short side but willowy, with long, dark hair, narrow hips, and a tan apron. She was going like a madwoman at something he couldn't see with a cleaver almost half her size, her bare arms wheeling like a fencer's, with a surprising absence of thunks.

"That's usually used on boar and cows, I believe," he said drily. Her back didn't look familiar (except that something about the broad shoulders sort of did), but the castle door *did* have a large 'help wanted' sign on it.

"Go away," she said without turning, in a calm, low voice that made his wire hair stick up in a crawling déjà vu. "I'm relieving my feelings."

"Rough day?" he asked, leaning against a counter in amusement.

"Rough fortnight," she said ruefully, her strong shoulders lowering a notch. She still didn't turn around. "Do you mind? I want to keep my fingers."

"Sorry," he smiled. After the first unsettling prickle of familiarity associated with the way her husky voice sounded playful even though a calm and sober tone, it was more soothing than anything else. "Just grabbing something to eat."

Her arm flashed out of pattern, and he reflexively caught a paper package just before it hit his nose. It turned out to be a venison and apple sandwich, on black bread with rosemary butter. He made a surprised, appreciative noise, and she explained, "People always raid kitchens at night. I didn't want to be interrupted to whip something up."

"Thank you. It's very good."

The cleaver paused for a moment. "No," she corrected in a judging tone, "it's edible. It might be halfway decent if it were warm, but I don't want to start the fire until I have to."

"I don't mind cold-cuts," he shrugged, and took another bite.

"Suit yourself," she shrugged back. "I don't have to watch."

"What are you making?"

"It's going to be a pie. Pigeon."

"Oh, for Filia?" The cleaver paused again, and she turned her head just a little. He got a glimpse of a thick fringe and the round cheek that was mostly cheekbone, and the black rim of thick glasses. Frowning, he said, "I would have thought the boy would want to cook it himself... but maybe he just wants to sleep in a bed. Are you new?"

"Not hired yet, I'm afraid," she said serenely, tossing a whole, nearly clean bird skeleton over her shoulder and neatly into the compost pot. "But they said I could use the kitchen."

He stretched, and strolled over to throw the sandwich wrapper away. "Irregular. I'll find out about that in the morning. Anyway, I'm one of the people doing the hiring. We could do your interview now, if it wouldn't distract you."

"I don't know," she said frankly. "Mostly I *do* just want to sleep in a bed." She turned around, and Zel's sword was out of its scabbard and glowing red before he could stop his hand. Behind the glasses, pale eyes blinked wide, thin lips parted, and a largish hand cautiously put the cleaver down. "Whoa."

Zel tripped over the word 'you' several times before he could pull himself together. It wasn't Xellos, it _wasn't._ Xellos had never had a tan in his life. Undeath. Whatever. And the hair was too dark, and she-he-was breathing. But a demon could probably fake things like that. "Question one," he said grimly, moving closer. "Species?"

"You know, I'm really starting to reconsider this whole working for you guys idea," the Experiment's manager said wearily, leaning against the counter, but he let Zel peer into his round-pupiled, lilac-petal eyes with the blue smudges underneath, and take his even pulse.

Zel sighed, and let him go. "I'm very sorry about all this, Mr. Ul Copt."

"Val Copt, actually, but I'm not formal."

"Er-all right." He was adopted? Well, of course, he'd have to have been; not a dragon, not blonde, Filia would probably pull a full Lina on anyone who suggested she'd ever thought of having sex… "It's just that you look like-someone. I thought your father was Milgazia ul Kataart, but you don't resemble him. -Oh, sorry. I'm a friend of your mother's. An old friend."

Val Copt eyed him. "Yes, she's spoken of you, Mr. Greyweir."

"Very reassuring," he didn't quite groan. "Mr. Val Copt, please understand, you're catching us with our pants down here."

The long lips quirked, but it didn't make him look like a mazoku more than he already did. "She didn't say you had a sense of humor."

"I don't," he said straightfaced, and val Copt actually grinned at him. "But with this mess about you on top of the staff turnover... Look, I asked them to keep you here because I was impressed with your restaurant, but there was bad weather and a misunderstanding, for which I apologize."

Val Copt shrugged philosophically. "Chaos moves. Listen, I wouldn't mind catching you with your pants down, but it'd be great if you could put your oversized metal thing away."

"Oh," Zel said sheepishly, and slid it home. Then he blinked. "What?"

Brenner was eyeballing him again. "You know what? I think you're tired. So am I. I have to finish this pie, though; Mother wants to have it in the morning and the premade crusts around here, are, um... no, premade is the nicest word I can think of for them, actually. Why don't you send for a page or whatever it is you send for your guitar and entertain me, and we can do the interview over breakfast. Or, er, maybe brunch."

"Did Filia tell you I play?" he asked, moving to the door.

"Nah," Solace said, turning back to the remains of his bird. "You have callouses."

"Oh." He was out the door before he thought to look down at his hands. Aloud, he asked, "On rock?"


	7. Under the draconian eye

"So," Filia began in the morning, gesturing to the empty chair. "I believe these things usually start with a recruitment speech. Explain why I should spend one more day here, let alone let my son work for you."

"It doesn't concern you," he said with an attempt at cordial, and held his plate out for a slice of cold pie. He'd had one of the pages prepare them a picnic table overlooking the hedge maze, and the dew was already hazing away.

"But I agree with her," Solace smiled, serving him. The smile, oddly enough, was not at all creepy. Zel didn't eat, though; he wanted his head clear.

"You it concerns. Isn't your brother coming?"

"He'll be up at noon, maybe. So?"

"So actually we usually start with why you want the job, Mr. Val Copt."

"Ah," Solace said, and took a viciously blissful bite of pie. "Now, _this_ is very good, Mr. Greyweir."

"I think you're biased," he pointed out, amused.

"You may be right," he confessed blithely. "Do you want that heated up?"

"That's all right," Zel assured him without an expression. He didn't want to be distracted. "They tell me vengeance is best served cold."

"My thoughts exactly," Solace nodded gravely, and grinned at him. The world stuttered. There was something heartbreakingly eager to please about that smile, about the rising bottom lip and the wide eyes above it. Clearly, he half-expected to be shot down. An uncertain expression on that face made gravity turn upside down and the summer air turn to frost.

When Zel could hear again, Solace was saying "...think I may be biased about all my cooking. I mean, most of the people who eat at my restaurant are either local and think I'm too cute to shoot down-"

Filia raised a skeptical eyebrow, but it wasn't amusement across her face. She looked unhappy, and a little guilty.

Either oblivious or ignoring her, Solace finished, "-or they've been walking all day and they're really hungry. How am I supposed to get real criticism out of friends and hungry people? I think I'm good, but I might be just highly adequate and nobody's gourmet enough to break it to me gently."

"I think you may relax on that count," he drawled. "Lina would tell you."

"Aunt Lina'll eat anything," Solace drawled right back at him.

"No, she won't," he said, and had to smile. "Filia, do you remember the time that undercook tried to pass off troll meat as lake dragon?"

The temperature went subzero.

"I guess that was before your time." After a full minute of arctic eyeball had passed, he said, annoyed, "Monkey brains have in fact been served here in living memory, all right?"

Filia didn't look very mollified, but Solace asked, "With scrambled eggs?"

"In coconut shells, I think."

"Eyuch! You'd get shell fiber in your teeth! They're not as smooth inside as you'd think, you know. And that flavor bleeds like anything. Coconut-and-cardboard flavored brains, bleah."

Allowing himself a half-smile at the face he made, Zel returned to the topic. "So you want a more discriminating audience."

"Also, I want to try more stuff. I have all these really interesting recipes, but I can't serve them at the Experiment. Even if I could afford the ingredients, it'd be ridiculous."

"Such as?"

Almost ten minutes of rapture later, Zel cut him off, amused. "I can see you've thought about this." Why was Filia glowing at him like that?

"I was going to conscript the next fifteen or so starving penniless scholars to reorganize my recipe book," Brenner said happily, "but if I had an actual staff it could be done more consistently."

"I see," he said, still amused. "You want more people to boss around."

"What I really want, I think," he was answered seriously, "is different people and a new setting. I've done what I can with the Experiment; they don't really need me anymore and because of what it is I can't take it any further."

"Explain that."

The thick, plum-glossed eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know what's to explain. I had a good idea and I put it into practice, and now the staff knows how it works and all they need me for is recipe experimentation, which I could really do by pigeon. Rainproofed, of course."

Zel eyed him dourly, but he was too much on the wrong end of that snipe. "I mean about taking it farther."

"Oh! Well, see, the setting is all wrong. You come in, you have a main course, maybe an appetizer or dessert, you leave. Also the most important things that happen there are romantic entanglements and the occasional business meeting. What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Serve food?"

"Yes, but most of the time it's the wrong food!" His hair was long and down, and he looked like he wanted to be pulling at it. "The little fools order it themselves, and half the time it's completely wrong!"

Zel stared at him for a minute. "You've lost me."

"I mean, some heavy-handed git wants to court a girl, so he takes her to a nice restaurant, and even if he's clever enough to avoid the garlic trap, they load up on noodles 'cause long things in sauce are sexy, and then they wonder why they're spending the rest of the night feeling bloated and unromantic. Or a traveler who's been craving real food for weeks stumbles in and orders roast chicken, and is surprised when he gets hungry again an hour later. People don't have any _sense_."

"Pet peeve?" he asked Filia dryly, and was rewarded with a 'give me strength' expression.

"Don't underestimate food," Solace said with grim emphasis, and Zel blinked at the arc of crust aimed between his eyes. "When I feed you, I can get you inclined to feel anything I want. I am an _invaluable_ resource. You tell Her Majesty that."

"Invaluable," he repeated dubiously.

"Picture this," he gestured with his fork, and a slice of egg went zooming off it like a discus into the hedge maze. "You have two diplomats you want to take advantage of to dinner. You know that one of them gets more careless when he's complacent, and the other is apt to lose his head when he's annoyed. The first, of course, has a seamless, pleasant meal. But the other-well, he winds up in a state because the server keeps nearly dripping on him, his meal is over-spiced or annoyingly bland, his cutlery's not suited to his hand, his wine's over-watered, his custard's too sweet or too bitter, the main course has been prepared with such a presentation as to dance on the edge of insulting his country-in fact the dish from the other ambassador's country was exquisite and his has been Sailoonized... and that's even without my being in collusion with the minstrels!"

Zel stared at him, fascinated, and told Filia, "He doesn't get this from you." Turning back to Solace, he said, "I doubt they'd even notice."

"Courtiers are alive to nuance!" he practically sang. "They know how to evaluate a twitch, or the color of your sash! If your lady's any good at directing a conversation and she tells me what she wants out of a meal, I can orchestrate it on a course by course basis, with sufficient time to plan it out! I'm brilliant and bored, dammit," he pouted, laughing helplessly through it, "and I want a better canvas!"

After a moment, he added calmly, "Actually, Mr. Greyweir, the danger is that they would notice; it's in being so obvious that they'd feel justified in making a scene. Which they probably would if I did all of that, but I wouldn't. I'd be more subtle."

After another moment, he said, "You don't want your pie?"

"Save me another slice," Zel said, standing up with the one he'd been wrapping. "I'm taking this one to Amelia."

"You haven't tried it," Filia pointed out.

Zel locked eyes with the echo of a ghost and said, "I don't really have to, do I?"

[fin]


End file.
